TEN DAYS:

A JOURNEY THROUGH TEARS

In January 2001, I returned home from a peace mission to Israel and Palestine. It was a delegation of eight “peace loving” Jews and Christians from across this great country. We consisted of two women who run meditation centers in Virginia, three highly educated social activists from California, a college student from Minnesota and a dynamic Rabbi from Connecticut. Together in the course of “TEN DAYS’, we sought out on a journey to compassionately listen to those suffering on both sides, and learn ways to heal those broken hearts, and hopefully plant seeds of hope in their weary souls.

We embarked on a project through Mid-East Citizen Diplomacy called the Compassionate Listening Project. The project is based on the premise that peace comes through the hard work of meeting one’s enemy- the beautiful, God-created human being, and acknowledging one another’s pain and suffering. Rabbi Phil Bentley once stated, “There is a Jewish saying that we were given two ears but only one tongue to teach us that we should listen twice as much as we speak. The key to all good human relations is in listening. For this reason, the work of the Compassionate Listening Project is peacemaking at its very best, and also its most practical”.

As volunteer peacemakers, as adults interwoven as a team, we had to combine our past experiences together with our education, culture, religious beliefs, and stereotypes. Then, they can build a new foundation on which involves listening without passing judgment to the feelings of others. Our task or process was intended to help both the Israeli’s and Palestinians see each other as more fully human. We needed to understand the grievances on both sides of this protracted conflict, which, then would help prepare us to facilitate efforts towards reconciliation. Finding lasting and free peace does not come from the barrel of a gun, but through eye to eye and ear to ear communication, an open dialogue of true understanding reconciling one’s sins or transgressions.

Over the first few days in Palestinian East Jerusalem talking to both Israeli Jews and Muslim Palestinians, one common thread between the two groups was that each needed to have their vital feelings validated by a respectful listener. Both want to be HEARD, not thoughtlessly cast aside as being inferior or unimportant by the international community and each other. Prior to landing on the Holy Land, while flying at over 30,000 feet in the air, I thought that my agenda or prime goal was to help persuade an end to the madness of war. I couldn’t of been further from the truth, first I needed to hear their precious voices, hear their heartfelt stories, hear their gut-wrenching pain, and witness first-hand their eyes which explode with the TRUTH! My mission as simple as it may seem on the surface, yet profoundly complex and utterly difficult was just to listen with the loving and compassionate ears of my heart, from one caring human being to another. We were here in this small corner of the world to help foster the understanding that brings about peace, and begin building up the spirit of all people, that we stop demonizing people and cultures just because we don’t understand them or the language they speak. As humans, we must allow our fears of others to subside, to allow the love of God’s creations to flow into our hearts and kindle a burning desire for peace and reconciliation.

The reality of the conflict in Israel and Palestine can be summed up into one word, which is FEAR! The reality is Israeli’s confiscating the land in the West Bank from Palestinians and bulldozing their homes down to rubble. Can you see the tears that fall upon the dry land by a Palestinian woman with three young children who are now homeless? Do you hear their innocent voices crying out across the Holy Land?

Then, the reality of the Jewish settlers who hear gun shots pointed at their homes and rocks thrown upon their families in retaliation. We visited an old man, a Jewish settler in the West Bank, who sat in a chair, a hard, old chair, where despair within his eyes prevented the tears of fear rolling down his cheek. His only fear at the present moment was that of the safety of his children coming home from school. He had heard that other children had been hurt or possibly killed that day or the day before. But, his fear is the reality! We sat quietly for almost an hour as the old man put his hands over his eyes, his hands trembling with anxiety. We felt hopeless, unable to assist within his reality. The silence was like nails being driven into my hands and feet; it was a bone-crushing silence just waiting for the phone to ring with yet again more sad news of another beautiful human plucked and plundered by the “enemy”. But, who truly is his enemy, was it the Palestinian youths that out of despair, poverty, and justified anger terrorized these settlers? Or was it the Israeli military who shot and killed hundreds of Palestinians whose only desire in life was to be free?

Countless people we met throughout our ten days in the “Holy Land of fear” continued to reiterate the profound sense of fear from both sides. From an Israeli journalist who spoke vividly about his fear of being “lynched,” to Fr. Elias Chacour who spoke of his family who were forced out of their home, so that a Jewish Israeli family could move into their home? From hardship to renewed pain, from hopelessness to greater despair, from bereaved parents who lost their sons in the war, to refugees living in occupied territories treated inhumanely. Story after story testified to their truths of suffering in a land that both relish as their homelands based on history, religion and tradition. I felt an overwhelming sense of empathy for both sides.

As the days drew closer for us to leave and return to the safe routine of everyday USA, I had a revelation or a dream for peace here and everywhere around the world. Let us simply stop the madness of war perpetuating and compounding our fears and hatred. Let us, one person at a time start building up a new history for the future. It is time for Israeli’s and Palestinians, the United States and Europe, Africa and Asia, Latin America and Arab countries; Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians; Blacks and Whites, Hispanics and Orientals, Native Americans and all Indigenous peoples; Women, Men, and Children to come together and sit at the table of humanity, as one united people searching for understanding, caring, and love. Together as one race, the human race who desire safety, security and peace. Let us talk, to hear, to see and to be acknowledged as unique individuals created by a higher power to help serve and protect one another. Stop funding more and more weapons that murder human life. Stop the World Bank, IMF, and Multi-national conglomerate corporations from destroying the true value, dignity and respect for human life by pushing 90% of the world’s population into economic poverty. Due to insatiable greed and magnified fear, people cause a never ending vicious cycle of war and instability, and never fully realize the awesome potential of true and lasting real peace. As Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace, you must work for justice”.

In closing, to quote a dear friend of mine, the Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, who led our peace delegation of compassionate healers of the heart through Israel and Palestine, she states, “If we can muster the courage to see with two eyes, we have a chance of finding our way through this darkness”.

God Bless The World!